Japanese legends, Davis retelling
Urashima's Home-coming
Urashima asks to visit his parents after spending three days with Otohime. At home he learns that the fisher-lad remembered by the village disappeared three hundred years earlier. His attempt to recover a path to the sea realm ends when he opens Otohime's forbidden gift.
Also known as Return of Urashima · Urashima's Lost Centuries
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In the sources
The familiar home displaced by centuries
TraditionalUrashima returns to find the cottage gone and his family long dead. A passer-by places the fisher-lad's disappearance three hundred years in the past.
A return journey that cannot be recovered
TraditionalThe sea recalls Otohime to Urashima, but no tortoise arrives to take him back. He opens the box in hope of finding the way, with the fatal consequence described in the legend.
Context & interpretation
This is a traditional home-coming episode, rather than a documented case of time travel or a measured difference between clocks. Davis's hundred-years-per-day statement belongs to the divine land in his retelling. Urashima's story is kept distinct from Visu's lost years and Sentaro's visit to a deathless land.
Original passages
Source 1
Myths and Legends of Japan
a day, according to mortal reckoning, was a hundred yearsOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: The Home-coming of Urashima, printed p. 327
Read directly from the active prepared scan; line breaks and spacing normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0052-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0052-E001-P0355
- Original scan leaf
- 387
- Recorded leaf number
- 387
- Current Reader position
- 354
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
Myths and Legends of Japan
no path opened out before himOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: The Home-coming of Urashima, printed p. 328
Read directly from the active prepared scan; line breaks and spacing normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0052-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0052-E001-P0356
- Original scan leaf
- 388
- Recorded leaf number
- 388
- Current Reader position
- 355
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed